


Undergrowth

by auspicium (latenightfangirl)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Arts, Dreams, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Mental Link
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:50:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latenightfangirl/pseuds/auspicium
Summary: It's his sixth year at Hogwarts, not his fifth - and yet visions of forests and what lay hidden in their earth haunt Harry with the trepidation of Halloween's creeping arrival.(There was fear and there was love and then there was nothing at all. And Harry, for the life of him, was beginning to wonder which one it was that he felt – if it was any of them at all.)





	Undergrowth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



_The night was young when he began his trek: it started through the mountainous bramble, the vines thick at his feet (which were customarily bare) and grasping at his calves, thorns and leaves a tangled mess. It twisted into a narrow passage through a copse of bent and gnarled trees, dark with the shadows of night and something else – something anticipatory; then it petered out into a bare and moonlit glade._

_Harry dashed forward and dropped into a kneeling position in the dirt. The earth was soft but crumbling, and smelled distinctly of something sharp when his fingers pierced its surface. His heart was racing in his chest as he clawed his way through the dirt, nails black and hands pale, gaunt things in the dark of the night._

Dawn broke on the twenty-second of September, and Harry woke with his sheets clasped in white-knuckled fists, desperately gasping for breath. His heart threatened to burst from his chest, and startlingly, it was not from terror – but _excitement._

“Wasn't that how you said the visions were?” said Hermione, hair and quill tucked behind her ear. She stirred her tea in sporadic movements, possibilities turned over and tossed out in her mind with the same chaotic force. “That you hadn't felt like yourself – but like _him?”_ Harry hadn't felt like anyone in those visions – just direction and determination. He hadn't realized they were Voldemort until much later – too late.

She sighed when he didn't respond. Harry felt he didn't have to; or perhaps he was only justifying a reason for not _wanting_ to. He didn't like thinking about the visions – the dreams that had never been dreams at all, and had clung to his mind as vivid as memories: the winding halls of the Department of Mysteries, the single-minded, unbearable need to _find._ It hadn't been him. It had never been him.

“You said that in this vision – fine, _dream_ – it hadn't felt like you were _you._ That your thoughts and motivations – there was something in this forest that you were looking for? – felt like something superimposed over yourself.”

“It wasn't a vision,” said Harry. Hermione looked dubious. “It wasn't. Not from Voldemort, anyway.”

He didn't want it to be.

Hermione, practically clairvoyant in her ability to rationalize and dissect anything and everything, obviously knew what he was thinking. It was all in her expression: stressed, scared, determined, and much to Harry's relief, understanding.

“How about we just wait it out?” said Ron, looking between them, weary but attempting optimistic. “Maybe it was just some weird dream.”

“We'll know if they continue,” Hermione agreed. “And if they do, we'll need to do something about it.”

Harry didn't want for it to get to that point – because without a doubt, that would mean occlumency lessons again. His efforts (as few as he had put forward) had been without results the last time – positive results, at least. He could still remember the pounding of his skull and the sleepless nights stalked by disorienting visions.

Despite his adversity to the very thought of occlumency, Harry did attempt to clear his mind before sleeping that night. He hadn't had the motivation before; but now that Sirius was gone and the mirror lay shattered in its shredded brown packaging, Harry thought it might be worth trying with some semblance of effort.

Clearing his mind proved to be terribly boring. There was a moment before he truly fell into the clutches of sleep that he thought something might've been happening though: the bed fell away beneath him in a tidal wave of pins and needles, spreading out into a soothing numbness and the sensation of floating on nothing. Then he was gone.

_There was a forest, a man, his hands in the dirt – the moon was overhead, his heart in his chest, and what he was looking for, beneath the dirt._

Harry gasped awake, blanket tangled around his legs like a steadily climbing vine, stripes running up the sheets in patterns of five: one for each of his nails, dragged through the dirt in his dreams.

That morning at breakfast, Harry kept his eyes cast down at his food, listening and humming to Ron's prattle and Hermione's lectures – “And Lavender said this,” grumbled Ron, or, “And Lavender said this,” swooned Ron; “You shouldn't skive off your lessons just because you're not required to take this class anymore,” said Hermione, and, “I don't see how you're doing so well in potions, Harry – not that I'm not proud of you, but I rarely ever see you studying…”

The following night produced the same results: forests and dirt, tangled sheets and a racing heart. Though Harry was never pushed to share his dreams, he felt the pressure rising in his friends' glances and stares.

Ron was clearly worried (especially considering he knew firsthand how awful Harry's sleeping schedule had become); but his solution was seemingly to fill Harry's head with lighter subjects, if the gossip of Hogwarts' love affairs could be considered that.

Hermione seemed to be holding herself back from making the first move, knowing by now that if Harry was going to say something he would come to her on his own. She had likely heard more about Harry from Ron than Harry himself now. Even in the face of that knowledge, however, Harry was determined to keep some sense of normalcy in his life – even if that meant ignoring the potentially dangerous.

(He swore to himself though that if things became truly bad that he would go to someone first before making a rash decision. If he had learned anything from Sirius' death, then it was that.)

“I don't know if I want to date her,” said Ron, hesitating over his move in their game of wizard's chess. Harry knew who he was talking about even without him saying her name; Lavender had been focus of Ron's sixth year, unlike Harry, who was being haunted by the ghost of fifth year. Not even the puzzle of Malfoy could distract him from the silent terror rising in him, the familiarity of Voldemort (possibly) being in his head.

“I thought you already were,” said Harry. “Didn't you go on a date together to Hogsmeade?”

“That doesn't mean we're dating!”

Harry shrugged and said, “She thinks it does. What does it matter, anyway?”

Ron gave him a queer look. “Don't you want to date someone?” he said. “Anyone?”

Pausing over his next move, Harry gave the question some consideration. Despite how everyone else felt about the subject of dating, he could care less. There was a war on the horizon. A relationship would just be another way for him to get hurt, another way to be manipulated. It was smarter to wait until after Hogwarts and everything else, whatever may come.

(Then there was the completely unrelated matter of him not finding any sort of romantic interest in anyone since the disaster with Cho; perhaps it was better that he avoided any sort of relationship for the time being.)

Realizing he had been quiet for a significant amount of time, Harry rushed to answer Ron's question. “No. I'm not interested in that sort of stuff. It'd probably just get in the way, anyways.”

“It makes for a good distraction, yeah,” said Ron. His eyes remained on a fixed point far from Harry's own, which lead Harry to believe he may have meant something else with what he said.

“The dreams –” Harry started, then thought better. Ron may have looked as though he wanted him to continue, but Harry refused. It wasn't the right time, yet.

(Would it ever be?)

When Dumbledore called him up to his office later that week, Harry immediately worried that he knew about his dreams. It promptly soured his mood because – rather than the despair over what was to come from his dreams being revealed – he regretted doubting his friends. Dumbledore hadn't, in fact, called him up to prescribe occlumency to his apparently lacking-in-privacy mind; but have Harry dip into _his_ mind, quite literally.

Tom Riddle at age eleven was both scrawny and handsome, with hollowed cheeks and protruding joints. He was malnourished and on the cusp of growth, which Harry understood all too well: he had grown some, not nearly as much as his peers, but enough to draw his skin taut over his bones in what Parvati jokingly described as “delicate.”

Harry felt far from delicate. He felt like a bow pulled taut, ready to spring. Delicacy wasn't an option in a war.

“Harry,” said Dumbledore, having already offered him both tea and a lemon sherbet. Though Harry was no longer angry with him – he had bled himself of that poison when he destroyed his office in a whirlwind of grief and... something else he hadn't quite figured out for himself just yet – Dumbledore was not someone to be underestimated. Harry trusted him, truly; but there was a quiet power hidden behind his half-moon glasses and grandfather gaze.

“Have you been sleeping well?” he asked, mouth twitching down in a frown of concern. Harry's heart jumped into his throat, and though he didn't doubt that this was genuine – his concern and curiosity – paranoia made his mind jump to conclusions. “You don't look well,” Dumbledore continued, acting as though he knew of – or perhaps altogether not noticing – Harry's sudden anxiety. “Have you been having visions again?”

“No, sir,” answered Harry. “I've been having strange dreams, but they're just that: dreams. Nothing has changed since the start of the semester, sir. Voldemort has been quiet. I think – I think he may be planning something involving Malfoy.”

“Malfoy, you say?” said Dumbledore, raising his brows. “I'll keep that in mind. And if you are having trouble sleeping, a simple dreamless sleep can remedy that. Even the best of us are weak to our own minds, especially that of our subconscious. I, as a matter of fact, often dream of being a young boy again.” He winked. “Now, off to bed with you – and don't forget to stop by the Healer's Wing for that potion.”

Harry did take up Dumbledore's advice, stopping by to get a vial of dreamless sleep from Madam Pomfrey. It tasted bitter and had a slimy consistency, but had the aftertaste of sweet lavender and something spicy. Harry was asleep quicker than he had the chance to clear his mind or consider the possibilities of Dumbledore's words and memories.

(And though he didn't dream, the sensation of confusion lingered long into the night.)

“You look better,” said Hermione the next morning. Her eyes scanned his face, considering, before she realized what she was doing and turned away, embarrassed.

“Yeah. Your eye bags are definitely smaller and lighter. Before it was like you had smudged ink under your eyes, or gotten two wallops to the face,” Ron added with significantly less tact. “You. Uh. Also didn't get up in the night.”

“Sorry,” said Harry. “Was I waking you up?”

Ron quickly shook his head. “No. I just –” he blushed. “Sometimes I heard. Sometimes Neville mentioned it. And your bed was always empty in the mornings, so I assumed…”

“S'okay. I get it.” He really didn't, but neither did he wish to leave Ron rambling, flush spreading to the tips of his ears.

“Right.”

_“Right,”_ said Hermione, giving Ron a reproving look. “I'd rather not know. What I would like to know is if either of you did your potions homework.” Harry, in all his sleep deprived glory, had forgotten. By the look of his face, it seemed Ron had too. Hermione sighed. “We've class this afternoon. You'd both best get to work.”

Potions was swiftly becoming Harry's most liked class – not his favorite, certainly (he doubted it ever could be, thanks to Snape) and neither his most hated, as again, Snape no longer taught it. Slughorn was easy to please and generally of good disposition, and his methods of teaching were interesting. (His course work also seemed simpler, though Ron would beg to differ.)

It just so happened that they were learning about Amortentia – the strongest known love potion.

“I smell,” Hermione said, taking a deep whiff of the potion's fumes, “freshly mown grass. New parchment.” She paused. “And…” Blushing heavily, she mumbled the rest. She busied herself with the tools on their table while Ron moved up to take his turn. His face, too, turned a brilliant shade of red as he cast completely obvious glances at Hermione and downtrodden ones to Lavender, who stood laughing with her friends.

Harry thought the potion wasn't worthy of any reaction like the sorts his friends had displayed; it smelled of treacle tart, the furnish for his broom handle, and something familiarly sharp and musky. He couldn't place the last scent, but it niggled a memory just out of reach.

“Well, Harry?” coughed Hermione, having successfully regained her wits about her. “What did you smell?”

“Nothing special,” he said. “My favorite food. Broom furnish. Something sharp, too, but I'm not sure if that was the wind before a storm or something else.”

“I see,” she replied. “And you didn't smell – _someone,_ did you?”

“Someone?” said Harry. “No, I don't think so. How do you smell someone?”

“Never mind!” Hermione quickly exclaimed. “Pretend I didn't say anything. That was a stupid question.”

That night he took the dreamless sleep again, certain that he would need it. He'd rather not think about the events of the day: girls giggling and boys posturing, Amortentia sharpness heavy in the air and his friends blushing and oblivious. Harry didn't want to think about _incapable of producing love_ or _induces obsession of the likes which can be confused for –_

He was asleep before he knew it.

Hermione had begun sending him concerned glances for reasons entirely opposite of his insomnia and dreams. He was sleeping _too_ well – the dreamless sleep was doing its job, and had been every night for the past week. Harry had begun to feel the first dredges of its side effects: drowsiness and slow reactions, a slight shake when he didn't take the potion on time.

“I'm worried for you, Harry –” said Hermione.

“I'm fine,” he interrupted, waspish. “I'm finally sleeping.”

“A bit too much, I reckon,” Ron muttered. Harry sent him a glare, to which he winced.

“One night, Harry. Just take one off the potion. So you don't develop an addiction.”

“Right. I won't.”

_His hands dug into the dirt, soft and malleable and gritty beneath his nails. It smelt of petrichor and overturned earth, dirt rung up from the deep, his fingers clawing deeper still. There was something down there, beneath the layers of earth and darkness that he sought dearly. A flash of white, the thump of his heart threatening to burst from his chest, or choke his throat with the sheer excitement –_

Harry woke with sweat matting his brow and a hand on his heart, the lingering memory of something white but indiscernible beneath the _layers of earth and shadow._ Shaking his head to clear his fevered thoughts, Harry pushed the memory down and away.

He did, eventually, fall back asleep – and though he did not dream again, the darkness was perpetrated with the sharp tang of tilled earth and forest musk.

It was during a visit down memory lane – particular that of Dumbledore and Tom Riddle, that Harry came to a question that he hadn't known, but that had been steadily building within his mind, as a seed of curiosity and devastation mixed: "Did Tom Riddle ever love?"

“Pardon me?” asked Dumbledore, appearing taken back. “Did you say something, my boy? I'm afraid my hearing isn't as good as it used to be.”

Harry desperately wished to say, _Nothing, sir,_ but he found the words bitter on his tongue. “Did – Did Tom Riddle ever love?” He asked, tripping over his words with an anxious tongue. It was difficult to mix the two thoughts, Tom Riddle and love – they seemed separate entities in his mind, as far from one another as night and day could be, but just as intrinsically intertwined. He feared love, certainly, but did he feel it?

“I'm afraid, Harry,” said Dumbledore, “that with all the happiness love can bring, it can never be perfectly replicated by magic. Tom was born of a falsified love. The Amortentia that Merope slipped Tom Riddle Senior kindled an infatuation, a powerful one that could easily be mistaken for love; but in doing so she stole the love from her very son. Harry, there is a terrible price to Amortentia: those born under its influence can never feel love for themselves. It's a terrible tragedy, and one only compounded by Tom's lack of maternal love as a young orphan.”

Harry wondered, for the briefest of moments, if Tom Riddle could have grown to be normal – or as normal as he could achieve – if Merope had not died that winter evening. Would he have been bettered by her guidance, as disillusioned as she, herself, was? Loving and making to love... And Tom Riddle, born without the capability to love...

“Do you pity him, Harry?”

Did he pity Voldemort? No, he could not pity that distant figure; but he could pity Tom Riddle, who he thought to see and understand better with each unfolding memory of his life. Harry could just as easily have become him: _There are strange likenesses between us..._

“In the end – and all things come to an end – there is no pity to be left for Tom Riddle, as he is long dead to this world. Voldemort stands in his place, eternally Tom, but not the boy in these memories. Do you understand, Harry?”

“Professor?” asked Harry.

“Yes?”

“Actually – never mind. When will our next session be?”

Harry sought out answers in his sleepless mind rather than the circling answers of Dumbledore. No matter what he asked, pondered, or discovered – they all seemed to lead back to the same conclusion, the inevitable end. Why that made his gut churn eluded him, but nonetheless Harry avoided it.

He couldn't believe that there was a fixed answer for everything. His curiosity wouldn't allow it, ever searching for more possibilities and paths for things to go down and spread out. Tom Riddle couldn't love – according to his birth, to _Dumbledore_ – but how true was this assessment, and how far could it be proven?

Voldemort feared love. He ran from it when faced with Harry's, abandoning their joined minds and quieting their connection. It sounded so cowardly when he considered it from this end; but Voldemort was far from weak or easily beaten. He would return, certainly, with his open defenses closed and barricaded for the next time around.

Could he feel it through Harry, then? Was that why he feared it, because he could not understand it? Or did he know it, recognize it, and fear it for its weakness, a foible he conquered long ago?

Harry couldn't clear his mind before drifting off into his fitful slumber – thoughts looping the same feedback of Tom Riddle and Voldemort, Amortentia and orphans. Yet he somehow still felt that same encompassing numbness, or perhaps a prickling or nudging, despite it fading quickly in the face of his deep sleep.

_The moon was full and the skies clear – dozens upon dozens of stars shone above head, drawing constellations and maps and possibilities. His eyes remained steadfastly on the ground, however, and the dirt he churned with his fingers, peeling back layers of the Earth._

_When cold, smooth bone touched his fingertips, his heart soared – he reached into the hole, bending over it and grasping for his prizes: phalanges, metacarpals, sternum..._

_Head bent over the unearthed grave, and the sharp scent of forest musk was unmistakable._

Harry woke gulping for air, his throat hot and dry. His heart was stuttering, and tears burning at the corners of his eyes – but as disgustingly happy as he felt, the horror – _his_ horror – beneath it all was overwhelming.

It _was_ possible to smell someone, thought Harry.

He wiped his face with a low groan. He had never been looking for something; he had been looking for _someone_. And who it was – well, that was unimportant, wasn't it? It was only important that he was finally certain now: the visions were no plot of Voldemort. They couldn't be, considering he – or whoever _he_ was in these dreams – _loved_ whomever he dug up. As terrifying a thought that was.

Harry felt the first stirrings of a headache and shelved his musings for later. He tried, without success, to clear his mind – and ending up slipping back into sleep.

_There were bones in his hands, or perhaps a skull, cackling in a high voice that sent him a-shudder; dirt beneath his nails, a nameless grave marker and an empty grave, the coiling dread and disappointment –_

_Flashes of images and information that made no sense and complete sense all at once –_

Waking abruptly, Harry clutched at his head and wished that his mind would be quiet for once. He tried to push the dreams away, clear his thoughts or empty his head – when something slipped and he was plummeting.

There was a gust, a swooping rush of freedom that came with taking a steep dive with his broom. Harry thought he could feel the brush of wind against his skin, but it was just his mind and all that swam about in it. He was touched and surrounded by fleeting thoughts and memories – a whirlwind within his mind – before he could bear no more.

Harry knew that his mind was something of a storm – all ceaseless thoughts and worries and raging emotions like the rise and crash of the tide – but he never thought that it was literally one. Now, grasping for purchase over waves of memories and thoughts, swept up and tossed about by gales of emotions, Harry wished he could be anywhere other than his own mind.

Then there was a touch of something cold – cold like the dark, crisp with inky blackness – that gave a tentative prickle that grew to a prod then a full blown _push._ Harry – somehow, he wasn't exactly sure how he did it or knew to do it – grasped the feeling, the shadowy cord, and tugged. It worked how Harry thought a portkey should – without the nausea or the confusing displacement. He was in his mind, and in the next moment he wasn't.

It was dark there – an all-encompassing darkness that felt more comforting than his storm-wrecked mind ever could. There was familiarity in chaos but the darkness was where he was safe; it was far from the grasping hands of his uncle, the tapered nails of his aunt, and the derisive laugh of his cousin.

He remembered curling up in his cupboard on long nights when the creak of the floors and tick of the grandfather clock chased sleep away. Harry thought of that boy, scared and alone, but ultimately his safest in the embrace of the shadows.

Whenever he felt the stirrings of a nightmare – for that's what they were: nothing more than dreams that woke him with a racing heart (to which he ignored the emotion behind) – Harry reached within himself for that distant darkness and followed the line until he couldn't feel anything at all anymore.

Which was a lie in a way, considering the darkness brought forth more of his emotions than his own mind – but they were separate from him there. He could watch them, touch them, and let them dissipate into nothing without feeling any of them. It was freeing.

Hermione of course thought it odd that he changed so drastically in a few nights' time. Harry was calmer, more rational, and better in ways he never expected he could be – better in ways that would've saved Sirius, had he found this reprieve sooner rather than later. Even Ron seemed to take notice of his new demeanor.

“Did you find what you needed to, mate?”

Harry couldn't help but startle and think of the nightmare – digging and searching for the bones of someone – _anyone,_ he reassured himself – and finding them. “What d'you mean?” he asked, trying to calm his racing heart. Ron couldn't know. He _couldn't._

“I dunno,” said Ron, shrugging halfheartedly. “You just seemed... lost, for a while there. But you don't anymore.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “What about you? I heard you broke up with Lavender. But you seem okay.”

Ron winced. “It was pretty messy. She wouldn't stop crying, and even ruined my tie when she..." He trailed off with a gulp. Harry nodded for him to go on. "She was angry. And upset. And I felt bad, yeah, but I also feel better. I think –” his eyes flicked away, “– I found what I was looking for. But she's – what I was looking for, she's not it.”

“Oh,” said Harry. He understood what Ron meant now – almost too well. “I guess... I found what I was looking for too,” he said, and rather than thinking of the nightmare, he thought of the darkness: calming and everything he ever wanted; never knew he _needed_. Ron grinned and Harry returned it wanly, feeling shame coil in his gut.

Because Harry was biting his tongue on a _very dark secret._

And though he'd rather not admit it to even himself – some part of him, deep down, was completely aware and _afraid._

(There was fear and there was love and then there was nothing at all. And Harry, for the life of him, was beginning to wonder which one it was that he felt – if it was any of them at all.)

Ron never did bring up the subject of his lack of interest in a relationship again. Perhaps he had intuitively sensed Harry's own resignation – to what, Harry wasn't exactly sure anymore. Sometimes he thought of Cho and the possibilities that were never there, or deftly avoided Ginny's phantom touches with – what? the same regretful yearning Ron felt when he laughed with Lavender?

There was no one for Harry; there _could_ be no one because the only one he would ever be satisfied with – no, he refused to even consider the thought of it. Nothing could come of it, and if he had his way, nothing ever would.

When Dumbledore called him up for the third time in the past two months, he felt things were moving too quickly. There was no way to measure time in a way that would rationalize his anxiety, but something, deep and just out of reach, was certain of it: Dumbledore knew more than he let on, Ron and Hermione were in love, and Harry was seeing more than just nightmares at night.

“Harry,” said Dumbledore. “I'm afraid I must take my leave for some time. Professor McGonagall will be stepping in my place while I am gone; but I wished to let you know of my decision personally rather than through my sudden absence.”

“Of course, sir,” said Harry. He wasn't sure if thanks were necessary or not. While Dumbledore hadn't had these considerations last year, Harry didn't think it was a privilege he was being granted – he had every right to know these sorts of things. “If I may ask, where are you going?”

There was a note of wistful sorrow in the headmaster's voice when he replied: "To visit an old friend, for my own selfish reasons I'll admit – and also for advice on a matter that mirrors our own situation."

“And what kind of situation is that?”

“That, I'm afraid, is a rather personal answer,” said Dumbledore, “and I will not insult you with a diversion or lie, so do not begrudge my silence, if you will.”

Harry swallowed, knowing he had encroached on a matter he shouldn't pry into. But whatever lay dormant within him prodded him with a distant suspicion, and he couldn't help but ask: “And you said you were visiting... an old friend?”

“Indeed,” said Dumbledore, fiddling with his wand. “Indeed so.”

That night Harry didn't dream. He had thought, only for an instant, of the truth behind his refuge: the darkness, he knew, was no part of himself – he had sought it out for that very fact – and the only part of himself that was intertwined so deeply with his mind that wasn't him, was Voldemort.

The admission, despite being only a brief confession, was irreversible.

That night, rather than dream, rather than descend into darkness as he desperately wished, Harry was thrust into the conjoined minds of him and Voldemort.

Beyond his own confusion and horror, futile grasping attempts to climb from this pitfall of terrible decisions and wretched curiosity, Harry could feel Voldemort's _amusement –_ his lurking, slinking, deftly stalking _interest – and what was the boy doing now? Seeking more than just a mind other than his own, but that of Lord Voldemort..._

The words flit through his thoughts as easily as his own – inseparable, in fact, from each other; and as Harry's mind danced around Voldemort's like a star orbiting a black hole – slowly being dragged into its gravitational pull, inescapable and inevitable, he found their thoughts and emotions becoming further indiscernible from one another.

And he was disgusted with himself because he didn't fight it. This was that same comforting darkness, and as much as he wanted to deny it, he yearned for it: Voldemort was the only one who could ever satisfy him, he knew.

The vial of remaining dreamless sleep went unused on his nightstand. Hermione and Ron looked satisfied with his apparent recovery, Ginny sent him unreciprocated glances, and Harry shared surreal and lurid dreams with Voldemort. They didn't often speak of anything – at least, not in the sense of actual shared words; it was more often they gifted glimpses of emotion and memories than a conversation.

Harry stubbornly refused to see it as a relationship of any sort, and instead excused it as being no different from when he had no idea (not any conscious recognition, at least) that the darkness was Voldemort, and Voldemort, the comfort he sought.

It was no different, he assured himself.

And yet:

_What are you running from, Harry, that you would rather run to Lord Voldemort?_

What was it, truly, that he so desperately avoided? He hadn't acknowledged the nightmares as anything more than dreams – certainly not visions, and neither had he accepted his connection with Voldemort. Yet he could no longer lie: his dreams were more than just nightmares run rampant, and his escape was more a trap than a reprieve.

Thus he decided to end it once and for all, sinking fully into the clutches of sleep, pushing away Voldemort's phantom touch upon his mind and allowing whatever was to come to come:

_Ron clapped Harry on the back with a surprising amount of force. He looked taller, if possible, and less gangly. There were lines and scars on his face where there weren't now, and though he appeared wearier than he had any right to, he also looked happier – content._

_Harry laughed and said something in reply – the words swam in and out of his ears, like barely skimming the surface of a faded and vaguely familiar memory._

_Time was as slippery as his attention to detail – one instant they're outside Hogwarts, another they were at the train station, and then they were at the Burrow and Grimmauld and dozens of other places he can no longer remember clearly._

_Then there was Ginny: beautiful unlike any other time he had seen her before, and his heart clenched, an aching emptiness making itself apparent. There was something missing, an intrinsic piece of his very existence forever erased; and suddenly he was at King's Cross but not – it was the in-between of the Forbidden Forest (where he lay, without a wand, heart no longer beating) and Nowhere._

_He couldn't love Ginny, and the only other he could love was gone – killed by his own curse rebound, and by Harry's hands destroying each piece of his soul so brutally severed._

_The utter agony of remaining alone for the rest of his life was beyond anything he had experienced before – and so Harry, desperate and ravaged by the years, sought to undo what couldn't be undone._

_He went to the graveyard, the blue sky hidden by one endless grey cloud of shame, and found where Voldemort's body had been put to rest like any other mortal man. There was no marker on the grave; he wasn't deigned the dignity of being remembered. Harry knelt before it, unearthed the desecrated coffin and suffered beneath the absolute agony of having him ripped away from him yet again._

_There was research: days and months and years of putting together a way to bring him back; potions books tossed aside, dark arts tomes scavenged and unraveled,_ necromancy _learnt and performed –_

_And then he located him, through a convoluted spell. He was led to a forest, and with his feet bare – a requisite of beginning the ritual – he transversed the bramble and weeds, following the length of his shadow cast by the light of the moon._

_Voldemort's bones were scattered without marker, without any sign or memory – it was an insult, a spit on his grave, and Harry felt an incongruous mixture of vindication and rage coil in him like two writhing snakes. But he was here: beneath the layers of earth, after so many years of separation – and with each layer torn back Harry's excitement grew._

_The ritual was conducted with the ease of practice, dark magic flooding Harry's veins and core as he clenched the Resurrection Stone and chanted the words that would wrench_ him _from the other side._

_Yet the impossible remained unattainable –_

_“Harry Potter,” said the skull, Voldemort's skull, as his bones lit with black flame and a horrific screech bounced off the walls without a known source. “Harry Potter!” it cackled. “Dragging Lord Voldemort back from the pits of hell with a magic forbidden to even the darkest of wizards!”_

_“I would do it all for you and more,” said Harry._

_“I don't want this farce of a life,” said Voldemort, and so Harry promised him:_

_“I will make it so none of this ever happened to begin with.”_

And so ten years earlier and one night's sleep later, dawn broke on the thirty-first of October to Harry Potter gasping awake not from a dream, but from the memory of what could've been but was no longer.

The others all attended that evening's Halloween feast, but Harry, whose head was pounding with a terrible desperation, sought out the seclusion of the Forbidden Forest.

He was confused, thoughts racing through his mind without any prerogative or destination – just a head-spinning repetition of the same adrenaline pumping realizations: Voldemort was alive, he was _alive_ and _there_ and Harry could _feel him –_

The obsessive focus of his train of thought had him barreling through the forest without awareness – one moment he was outside it, heart thumping wildly in his chest, the wall of trees looming enticingly _–_ and all too soon he was amidst the shadows and whispering branches, no clue as to where he was or where he was heading.

Every turn of his head conjured a shadow just beyond his vision. Harry knew there could be any manner of creature hiding in the depths of the Forbidden Forest, and the eerie silence which had descended upon it only fed more fuel to his mind's paranoia. He kept his eyes forward, trying not to let his head turn to every flicker and murmur, but the creeping awareness of _something_ watching him hastened his feet and narrowed his vision.

There was only the trees in front of him and earth beneath his feet – the echo of quick steps, crunching leaves, and his own breath, loud in the silence.

It felt as though he were being chased – but there was nothing behind him, even if didn't dare to look – or that he was being toyed with. A vine snagged his foot, curling around his ankle and pulling him down. Harry collapsed, lights dancing behind his eyelids. He hesitantly looked back, seeing nothing behind him – just the shadowed trees and himself.

Reaching for his foot, he felt for the vine in the darkness, but found nothing.

Then something soft, smooth and cool was pressing _hard_ into his skin – it was a leather glove, someone's hand – and it was gripping his wrist as his vision spun.

“Harry Potter,” whispered the ghost of Tom Riddle, pulling him closer, until their noses almost touched – his eyes were darker than the shadows surrounding them, and yet Harry could make out nearly every detail of them. His lips were moving, Harry's name silently shaping them again and again. It was like the vision of Voldemort at King's Cross – he was dressed in a muggle suit, crisp and somehow completely visible despite the darkness. He was the only thing Harry could see – the only thing he _would_ see.

“You're not real,” whispered Harry, just as another arm curled around his waist and dragged him into a sudden side-apparition. The ghost's face was split with a smile full of bone-white teeth before disappearing completely.

“My lord,” prostrated the death eater, pushing Harry forwards and onto his knees. It smarted, but Harry was not about to let that affect his confrontation with Voldemort. He shot to his feet, ignoring the jeers and threats, and faced Voldemort eye to eye.

“Harry... Potter,” hissed Voldemort, echoing the phantom of the Forbidden Forest. Had that been real, or had he been hallucinating? Had it been some form of vision sent by Voldemort to distract him?

“Voldemort,” said Harry, feeling a nasty curl of satisfaction when the death eaters hissed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

A smile lifted the corners of Voldemort's mouth. It was like a broken, jagged piece of mirror: Tom Riddle was there, in his face and mannerisms, but it was malformed – destroyed and reconstructed, molded and reformed into something new. Voldemort was gaunt, pale, and all the magnificent glory of Tom Riddle; but he was also terror risen from the grave – more than man, and yet trapped in a mimic of its shape.

“Leave us,” he said, waving his hand. Some were hesitant to follow his orders, but that was quickly dispersed in the face of Voldemort's ire – he hissed, a meaningless string of sibilance, and the death eaters rushed to comply. The room emptied, and Harry's heart sank further into his stomach, the impending dread drawing closer with every moment of silence.

“Come closer, Harry,” Voldemort beckoned. Harry stood stiff, the weight of his two options balancing precariously in his mind – to refuse or to comply - and decided to approach him, courage having yet to leave him completely.

"What a... pleasant surprise,” murmured Voldemort, eyes falling languidly over Harry's form as he twirled his wand. “Harry Potter, seeking _me…_ ”

“I wasn't,” blurted Harry, then, for some reason he couldn't explain, continued, “I was in the Forbidden Forest because – because I had a strange dream.”

“A strange dream?” echoed Voldemort. “And what might this dream have entailed? Memories? Conversations? Perhaps, an inexplicable connection to Lord Voldemort?”

Harry startled. The connection – he had known it was to Voldemort, was certain of it since the first moment he sought it out himself; but he hadn't been fully aware of its duality. Voldemort had been a part of every exchange – perhaps more so than Harry himself, who was inept at the mind arts.

“How much –?”

_“Everything,”_ he said, laughing – and it sent chills down Harry's spine. “Oh, Harry – your mind is such a beautiful and chaotic force. Anything I want to know is right there, loud and eager.”

“You –!” The anger was burning hot in his chest, his heart racing, and it was all starting to boil over: the dreams, visions, and the memories – here was Voldemort, alive and well, his horcruxes intact. _Harry_ was still a horcrux. And what an odd thought that was – to know he was something that he had yet to even learn about.

“Yes,” said Voldemort, punctuating the _s_ with a long and low hiss. Harry shuddered. “Let it out, Harry... Your anger is breathtaking, just like your mind... your _soul…_ ”

“My soul,” breathed Harry, feeling the air leave his lungs.

“Yes, your soul,” he returned, but Harry's mind was far away – thinking of memories and futures and a version of himself that would forever be cursed to live as only one half of a whole. He had been given a chance, a warning, and he desperately felt the need to heed it.

“Voldemort,” said Harry, his legs shaking. He felt as though he would fall to his knees, crawl towards the hem of the man's cloak and bask in his mere existence. The adoration was so overwhelming – was this love? Harry wondered, just as his mind supplied him with another, equally fitting term, _obsession_ – that it seemed to fill him up and overflow.

“Your soul,” he continued, “it's – I know what you did to it. I know about the horcruxes, and my scar, and – _Dumbledore knows, it's not safe –!”_

Voldemort hissed loudly, angrily, and the grip on his wand tightened. Harry was gasping for air, feeling as though he were two people in one body – but hadn't he always been, with Voldemort's soul attached to his own? But now he was Harry and Voldemort and _Harry –_

_“My soul,”_ said Voldemort, the parseltongue drawing Harry's mind out of its internal conflict. _“I can see it now... Your mind is warring with itself. Come closer, and let me see_ you.”

Harry did. He let Voldemort cradle his face like he was his most priceless possession, and look through his eyes and into his mind. He saw it, then, what made Harry act with desperation, with adoration and recklessness.

His thumb stroked Harry's cheek as he said, “You have given Lord Voldemort a gift as invaluable as time itself. And I always repay my debts, my soul... For conquering time for me, I will conquer death for you: I will bring your godfather back from beyond the Veil.”

Harry felt his heart shatter and reform all in the span of a second. He loved this man, monster, with every fiber of his body and soul. “Having you with me again is all I could ever ask for in return,” said Harry, completely honest. “But I'm – _beyond_ grateful,” he said, finally.

“Of course,” said Voldemort, pulling Harry to him, their bodies flush. “I wouldn't see my soul anything less than perfectly satisfied.” And so, answering the wish shared between their souls, he pressed their lips together for a kiss.


End file.
